The Long Game, A Zootopia Fanfiction

Friends?

Disclaimer: Zootopia and all Canon characters are owned by Disney. All other characters, product names, trademarks, and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

...

Nick strolled into the lobby of the ZPD. Carrying a box of Clawhauser's favorite doughnuts, Nick stopped at the reception desk to greet the overly large cheetah. "Morning Ben, I brought you an entire box of crème filled this morning, make sure you save one for Hopps. Okay?"

"Morning Nick, will do." He reached in the box and pulled out a Bavarian crème filled treat and smacked his lips. "You're the best Nick. Where is Judy? I still can't get used to seeing you two not being partners and coming in together."

"Don't worry, we're still partners. A little more parking duty and everything will be back to normal. A side benefit is that I get to skip the bullpen meetings." Glancing around and lowering his voice to a whisper he added, "Although I do miss seeing that vein on Bogo's forehead throb every time he looks at me during the briefing." Waggling his eyebrows, he gave a two-fingered salute to the now chuckling dispatcher, "See ya, Ben."

Nick jumped up and grabbed the handle to the male's locker room and swung open the large door. Six months, a year for Judy, and still no modifications to any doors, fixtures, furniture or anything in the building except his and Judy's computers and one patrol car. Really feelin' the love.

There were a pawful of others in the locker room, but none of them acknowledged Nick as he walked to his locker. Looking at his locker door, Nick shook his head, 'Great, not again' he thought to himself. A booklet was taped to his locker, removing it, Nick read the title and then stuffed it under his arm. Stepping up on a small wooden box, he unlocked his locker door and then holding the door so no one could see his face, he closed his eyes tight and counted to five.

His usual mask of indifference had slipped a bit. What did he expect? All anyone saw when they looked at him was an ex-hustler fox pretending to be a cop. They didn't like him and they didn't want him here. Quietly sighing he counted himself lucky that no one had broken out a muzzle, yet.

After a couple of deep breaths, he was able to get a semblance of his hustler's mask back in place. He put his backpack and his clean workout clothes in the locker, quietly shut the door and went to leave.

The other mammals in the locker room could tell from watching Nick that he wasn't happy, a couple smirked while the rest either looked at the speciest hazers with disgust or shook their heads and looked away.

With the booklet in his paw, Nick jumped again to grab the door handle and opened the door. Once out of the locker room, he crumpled the booklet up and threw it in a trash can, well, underhanded it into a trash can at least as tall as he was.

With his head down and his tail droopy and dragging near the ground, Nick went to check out the parking cart. Slipping through the door to the garage, Nick missed seeing Judy, who had been watching him leave, and was now wondering what had happened to her partner to make him look so miserable.

-/-/-

"There's the place, looks like Leah is already there." Garrison gave a head nod toward a bistro up the block as she pulled the cruiser into a parking spot.

Garrison opened the door and held it open for the small rabbit. As Judy's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, she could see that they had missed the lunch rush and almost all the tables were empty. No crowd, good, hungry bunny wants food quickly. A lioness sitting with a female honey bear at one of the tables waved a paw in their direction. Garrison and Judy headed over to the table and sat down.